Remembering Mother’s Day--Behind Bars : Family: The social costs of keeping 65,000 mothers in prison are too high, say church members and women’s rights advocates. They will call Sunday for alternatives to incarceration.

For many mothers, Sunday will be a day of hugs and kisses, flowers and candy. But for women behind bars, Mother’s Day is no occasion for celebration.

Determined that the mothers among the 87,000 women in U.S. prisons won’t be ignored this Mother’s Day, more than 130 religious and secular groups across the nation will be trying to raise public awareness about their plight.

The national campaign is being led by JusticeWorks Community in Brooklyn, N.Y., which provides services for current and former women prisoners and their families. The organization is based at the Church of Gethsemane in Brooklyn.

Former prisoner Cheryl Mobley, a JusticeWorks staffer, will participate in special services Sunday.

A mother of two who served four years on a drug-related charge, Mobley recalls that Mother’s Day was one of the days she most dreaded while in prison. It was a day of separation, guilt and loneliness, she says, and she doesn’t much like it even now.

“I wish sometimes I didn’t have to acknowledge the day,” Mobley said. “I don’t really like facing it.”

Mother’s Day still evokes those old feelings for Mobley. It’s also a reminder that she and her family are still imprisoned by the past.

Her former husband kept her son and daughter away from Mobley during her incarceration. As a result, Mobley and her children remain distant.

“They understand what happened and I hope the day comes that we can be reconciled,” she said of her son, now 22, and her daughter, now 18. “But I’m not a part of their lives anymore.”

Mobley’s experience is all too common, event organizers say, which is why Sunday’s event has a theme: To imprison a mother is also to imprison her family.

The Rev. Connie Baugh, pastor of The Church of Gethsemane, said the event is designed not only to draw attention to the plight of women prisoners but also to launch a national movement to seek alternatives to incarcerating mothers.

The social costs of incarcerating women are enormous, Baugh said. Of the 87,000 women in U.S. prisons, 65,000 have dependent children.

Mobley was in some ways lucky: Her former husband raised their children and did “an excellent job.” But too often, children are placed in foster homes or put in the care of resentful relatives.

This breakdown of families could be prevented, Baugh said, if a few steps were taken. Mandatory sentencing guidelines, she said, could be reviewed in the cases of mothers, because the guidelines--often used in drug-related cases--are largely responsible for the 224% increase in the women’s prison population over the last 10 years.

Other steps include sentencing reforms that would establish special dispensation for qualified women who have young children, and the development of community-based centers that would allow female prisoners to maintain contact with their children.

Sunday’s event will involve 12 national prisoner and women’s rights groups joining forces with nearly 100 local congregations across the country. Through the network of organizations and congregations, some 20,000 brochures, buttons and paper flowers--the symbol selected to represent the plight of mothers in prison--will be distributed.

Baugh calls the event a way to counter the commercialization of Mother’s Day and open the nation’s eyes to the forgotten women.

Mobley said her own mother will be attending church with her Sunday.

“She knows how painful the day is for me,” Mobley said, but added that the service is a way for her and other former prisoners to join in common cause.

“It’s important for us to come forward,” she said.